Lily Tomlin is a true comedy goddess. Shes been entertaining people with her wonderful cast of characters since Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. In fact one of my favorite movies of hers, 9 to 5, was just released in special edition DVD. But her latest movie is special because not only does she play Meryl Streeps sister in a singing duo but it also reteams her for a fourth time with director Robert Altman. A Prairie Home Companion is a look at a fictionalized version of Garrison Keillors long running public radio program. It is reimagined as a song heavy variety show and the movie highlights its last night before it is shut down.

Daniel Robert Epstein: How was it getting to work with Robert Altman again?

Lily Tomlin: Great. Wonderful. Its always a real opportunity and fun and blissful and we got Meryl on top of it.

DRE: The two of you obviously have a real rapport.

LT: I just absolutely love her. You cant not love her. I dont know what it is. Shes just so wonderful. Shes so much fun and crazy and unpretentious.

DRE: She once told me that people are nervous when they are first around her but then she disarms them with a joke.

LT: We are nervous when we see her but you just warm up with her so easily.

DRE: Did the two of you have chemistry right away?

LT: Yeah shes so absolutely cool and delightful and fun and like a bad kid. There is this side of that just wants to misbehave and doesnt take anything very seriously. Im sure she takes plenty of things seriously, but she doesnt bring that to her exchange with everybody else. Shes just playful and fun and smart and divine.

DRE: Do you and Robert keep in touch when youre not working together?

LT: Oh yeah. I dont see him every week or anything like that but I feel very connected to him and his wife Kathryn.

DRE: Do the two of you connect because of your comedy-improv background?

LT: No, I think originally I got in Nashville because we had the same agent. I had optioned a book for myself, called Maiden. I was still in Laugh-In in 1971 because I never dreamed I couldnt be in movies too. I didnt realize how hard it was to go from television to film in those days, especially if you did the kind of thing I did on Laugh-In. I had optioned this book and my partner Jane wrote the screenplay. As it turned out Bob was looking for a project for Joan Tewkesbury to direct after [writing the screenplays for] Thieves Like Us and Nashville. My agent gave him that screenplay and he was going to produce it with Joan directing. So Bob said, well you come down to Nashville and take this part and then well get to know each other and then well do Maiden in the fall. Columbia had bought the screenplay and reimbursed me and we were going to do it at Columbia because Bob had just done California Split with them and they wanted him to cut six minutes out of it. They came down to the set of Nashville and he punched one of them in the nose and that guy fell in the swimming pool so we never did Maiden. I didnt know it but Louise Fletcher was supposed to play that role of Linnea and thats where the deaf element came in because her parents are deaf. She and I exchanged letters later because she and her husband had been in Thieves and I guess her husband had been one of the producers and they had some kind of falling out or something because Louise dropped out of Nashville.

DRE: Im sure youve done long runs of theatre or a long movie shoot but youve never been in anything as long as your character has in Prairie Home Companion, are you able to relate to that idea of a project ending?

LT: Yeah, its a little like losing a lover or a death or something.

DRE: But they seem to take it very well.

LT: Well my character has probably been drinking all evening. I think thats part of Altman or Garrisons sensibility too. The play is sort of about mortality in general. Its certainly a strong layer of all the content and it takes it in stride. Theres nothing you can do about it. It is just part of the flow of life and maybe thats why they dont angst over it. Theyre sad but they go on and the girls have tried to buy a bus to get a tour going. So hope springs eternal in a sister act.

DRE: Youve done so many projects, do you keep working so hard because of mortality?

LT: I just love to work. I do concerts all the time. I did a concert Friday night in San Jose while everybody was at the Hollywood Bowl doing a live show. Garrison was there, Meryl sang and John C. Riley was there. I couldnt be there because I had this old date for months. It was a great date and I enjoyed it but I really wanted to be at the Bowl with all of them.

DRE: Im sure the cast will do another concert in the future.

LT: I hope. I always beg Garrison but he always turns around and says, Yeah.

DRE: Have you ever had a project shut down by external forces?

LT: I dont think I have. Well [The Incredible] Shrinking Woman was shut down because I had to go and do 9 to 5.

DRE: Thats one of my favorite films.

LT: Shrinking Woman or 9 to 5?

DRE: Both of them.

LT: We were shooting Shrinking Woman for five months because of all those special effects. I was supposed to start 9 to 5 and we just didnt get done so the studio let us shut down for a couple months and I went and did 9 to 5 and then I came back and finished Shrinking Woman.

DRE: Tell me a good memory from The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

LT: Well a good memory? All the things I had to go through at the time. From the scene in the garbage disposal to this day the skin on the right side of my face is thinner. I have a little crease here in my eye because they had to put so much of that garbage on me and it had dye in it and I had a big allergic reaction to it. I had to put a lot of steroids on my face. It was all enflamed and peeled and I just kept doing it over and over again. Then also I rode on that darn gorilla which was all made out of fiberglass. God only knows what I have in my lungs.

DRE: I assume thats why you never did a movie with special effects after that.

LT: Jane and I were the executive producers so I didnt complain about it or anything. I tried to protect myself but I wanted to get the movie made. I saw fiberglass flying around in the air but I tried to wear a mask a good part of the time. Then I was to be in the lab and they put a beaker over me and stuff like that. I was 30 feet up in the air so we could do the special effects but there was guard to keep me safe. Im supposed to be running back and forth across the table, I could have easily run off the edge and I couldnt look down because I was supposed to be screaming.

DRE: When Janes credited with writing something that you are working on, do you write with her?

LT: She really writes. Im not a writer of any kind of substance at all.

DRE: Did you understand I Heart Huckabees?

LT: Oh absolutely, thats the kind of material that I totally understand. Its about how we dont know anything and how crazy being a human is and whats really true. Its just like in [the Broadway play] Search [for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe], whats reality and what isnt and how were all cultured and conditioned to have certain views. It depends on where you grow up, where youre born, what era and everything else that develops your world view or even your view relating as a human. If you have a whole different acculturation, you might be extraordinarily different.

LT: I love him. Im mad for him. To me hes like Altman because hes just as free but absolutely totally different. Altmans a very different person but you always know it is going to be an adventure.

DRE: From what I read, he doesnt seem to calm down on set.

LT: No, he doesnt. But Ive only been on two sets with him and hes only made four movies. His first movie was his student film, Spanking the Monkey. Then he did Flirting with Disaster, which I did with him but he was still a new young director but he was pretty much there. Then he did Three Kings, I dont know what happened there and then Huckabees. That was the nature of the movie like, Im going to find my way, Im going to find myself. Dustin [Hoffman] used to say it was like Jackson Pollock throwing paint at the camera. We would be doing a scene and David would be yelling through a megaphone, Now switch lines! and wed switch parts which was wild. But Im totally up for those things. I can be just as serious and constrained and Ill try whatever comes along.

DRE: Do you still do bits with Ernestine?

LT: I do her in concert all the time. A couple years ago she did a series of commercials for an internet computer based teleconferencing company. Shes an executive now. She was dressed a little more executive, same color scheme, same jewelry; her hair was a little more groomed. But she was teaching CEOs and others how to economize and teach.

DRE: How difficult is it to stay current and gain new fans?

LT: I dont know, thats hard. Unless youre on television a lot in a youth oriented vehicle, I dont think a lot of kids get exposed to you. They might know you from some old movies like if theres a cult following for Shrinking Woman or 9 to 5. But thats the nature of being a performer. Kids today dont even know who Gregory Peck is because they live in their own time. Theres always going to be leakage and people are going to know a certain project or their parents will show them something. I still have kids stop me on the street and they do the snake thing from Big Business. But when I used to open a show, kids would be in sleeping bags out in the snow though my fan base has aged with me.

DRE: Would you want to go on TV now to try to get some new fans?

LT: Sure but I cant pander to them. It has to be organic. Theyre the first ones to know if youre authentic or not. It will either come or it wont. If youre on a hit show that young people watch, then people are going to know you.

DRE: Has anyone wanted to do like a new sketch comedy or variety show with you?

LT: Yeah, different things at different times. Not so much variety because I dont think the networks have too much confidence in variety in this time. Saturday Night Live and Mad TV are anomalies. But that doesnt mean somebody couldnt come in with something. Ive developed a couple of sitcoms but the story meetings are unbearable because they change things so much. Jane and I would always say, well well come up with something else. A few years ago I had a commitment to go on air, but we could never come up with a script that we all agreed on. They always wanted to take some absolutely integral element away.

DRE: What would be an example of an integral element?

LT: Many years ago everybody on the show was going to wear a spy camera except me. I was going to make the set like my house and my office so anything that was shot at my home could be cut into the show. That was just one element of a very much larger idea. It would have been fun.